


Fierce Constellations

by Luckythirdshot



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 15:24:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11535015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luckythirdshot/pseuds/Luckythirdshot
Summary: Matt stargazes.





	Fierce Constellations

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in response to the Matt Holt week (July 17-23). Day 1 prompt was 'Constellations.'

    Matt sat on the landing bay silently, watching the stars through the windows in the large door. Another battle, another close win; Another battle, another step closer to finding his father. He ran his fingers down the fighting staff he had lay by his side, refusing to go far from it. He had learned the hard way that you always keep your weapons nearby.

    He knew that this was the calm he had earned after the battle they had just been through, yet he still felt restless. Instead of getting up and pacing around or going back to practice with the other members of the rebellion, Matt focused on the stars. If they had been home, within the reaches of Earth, he probably could have named a great number of the stars and what constellations they were a part of, but here, the stars were as alien as the life forms.

    He knew the constellations by heart. He had loved them since he was a child, his father often taking him and Katie out to stargaze or watch the meteor showers. When they had lay out in the yard and their father would trace the constellations with the tip of his index finger, then guiding their hands to trace the shapes as well.

    As a child, he had been enthralled by space. The more his father explained, the more Matt was sure that he wanted to explore the vast expanses of the unknown, to come back and to show his father what his father had given him. To watch as constellations were born beyond the imagination of their predecessors, and to know that he had played a part in such an amazing thing.

    Now, there was alien space an a loneliness lodged in his heart. No familiar constellations in sight and the knowledge that all he had wished for was gone.

    But still, Matt thought. He could fix this. Though he knew that it was impossible to face Zarkon and right the wrongs committed against them with only a small group of rebels, he had to do something, and the ferocity with which he faced the daunting task was equal to his fear. Nestled in between the two was a tiny flame of hope, the one thing that kept him going.

    Matt traced shapes in the stars anyways, though he knew none of them. Shapes of beasts that were not even a thought in their tiny corner of the universe, shapes of myths and legends and stories. Constellations were a social construct anyways; What men saw in the great unknown, they named, they reigned in to seem more familiar.

    _The constellations keep watch over us all._  It was a sentimental saying, one that he only barely remembered his father saying when Matt was still very young. Matt fervently wished that the constellations were watching over his father, and over Shiro who had all but sacrificed himself to keep Matt safe, and over his family, still back on Earth, his mother and sister both no doubt convinced that their family was gone.

    Matt traced his thumb back over some of the stars again, instilling within them the hope that he held. The sentimental, romantic side of him that had never left trusted the stars, though he knew that they were nothing more than stars, nothing more than bodies in space. Because the stars were silent sentinels, night after night, to the hopes of humanity.

     _Ten stars to form the Eagle, Aquila. Five to form the Queen, Cassiopeia. Nine to form Leo, the Lion._ The words rang in his head, and he could see his father etching the shapes of them in the sky with precision and delicacy. All of them were so much larger than life, all of them so achingly familiar, all of them light-years away.

    Matt closed his eyes. If he strained hard enough, he could feel his father’s hand on his shoulder, could hear his voice reminding Matt that all great things require great effort and perseverance. Matt nodded, knowing that it was the truth. Chipping away at a ten thousand year empire took perseverance, that was without question. Reaching his father after he had escaped would take daring.

    He would do it, though. He would tear down the whole universe to find those he cared about. He would make the stars themselves swear their loyalty in the battles to come.

    Nothing would stand in the way of Matt reclaiming his family. Nothing would stop him from tearing Zarkon down for what he had done to all of them.

    All the constellations are constants in our lives. Etch them out in the sky, watch them dance in the sky, and pledge your hopes to them. Watch them stand guard for you.

    Adopt their ferocity and burn as brightly as possible, burn your enemies to the ground, and stand guard for those you love.

    Matt picked up his staff and decided that it needed something. That at the next chance possible, he would carve the constellations into its handle and fight with them by his side


End file.
